The Ancient Kingdom of Punt and its Factor in Egyptian History By Said M-Shidad Hussein Sections V & V1 July 12, 2014 ____________________________________________________________________________________________ V) Ancient Punt as a State More Traces for Early Civilization The meaning of the term ‘state’ is generally relative, depending on the time and interpretation. At the time of Punt, any sizeable, organized community or entity in form of chiefdom, kingdom, or the like, can qualify to be assumed or understood as a state. Punt was definitely that kind of community. However, we neither know its governmental system, nor its geographical border. But I think there are useful clues about the basics of those questions. Punt was not a city-state, but a country. By our reckoning, its coast was at least from Jabuuti to Xaafuun, the entire coast of Aromatic Land. This could allow it to have brought a vast interior land under its control. The would-be location of some of its exports such as myrrh trees, ebony wood, Panthers, gold, also hint that it had an access to relatively remote interior areas. It appears, for example, that the Somalis were collecting the gold from their mainland for thousands of years but overtime it was depleted at there. They eventually went farther as they were providing it in the medieval times from Damut and Hadiya regions, now in the West and SW of Ethiopia respectively, and from Sufala, (Mozambique). Since the gold was the number two item in the Punto- Egyptian trade, and even within later countries, the Puntite traders must had been providing it from far-off places. The northern Somali unique culture of cairn building and rock painting also suggests that its land was not less than the primary region of the culture, from the eastern coast to Harar uplands. We have already addressed in ‘section 1’ that the inhabitants of Somalia from 1 The Ancient Kingdom of Punt and its Factor in Egyptian History By Said M-Shidad Hussein Copyright © 2014 WardheerNews, All rights reserved the late Old Stone Age onwards had a head start in turning, not only to what is termed food production, but also to recording the main type of their lifestyle and ethnical appearance in paintings. Figure 10 a lion-looked natural statue from Cal Highlands which look down the Raas Caseyr coast, the heart of Aromatic Land, (after Abdinasir Mohamed Yusuf - Buraale) of Puntland Development and Research Center, 2006. One has to wonder if this is purely nature-made picture or if there was a human intervention for carving it as a lion. Abdinasir believes that there was a human role, but that needs an archaeological confirmation. 2 The Ancient Kingdom of Punt and its Factor in Egyptian History By Said M-Shidad Hussein Copyright © 2014 WardheerNews, All rights reserved Acquiring food production was a prerequisite for settled or stratified society, while having a kind of recording technique is a sign of cultural development. Of more important advancement in these developments is the invention of a writing system by the prehistoric Somalis which naturally means a development in political organization. This crucial progress particularly supports the existence of organized governance authority or recognized central leadership. Across the region, the Puntite society had established a lettering system of their own. In addition to the naturalistic pictures for the appearance of their racial type and the way of their living, they had additionally a writing system in thousands of schematic figures. The figures or inscriptions cover the lower part of the drawings in a large number as observed by the researchers: “The studies have also revealed that the ancient Puntites developed a system of writing that is yet to be decoded by scientists ... Underneath each of the rock paintings were found ancient inscriptions that archaeologists have not been able to decipher.”1 Most of the places have a good number of inscriptions. In Laas Gaal, near Hargeysa, there are as many as 600 inscriptions in the scene; and in the Lag Oda, near Dirir Dhabe, there are about 800 of them. But these are only a few places that are investigated. The proof for the existence of a writing system in Pre-historic Somalia is not only on the rocks, it is on a record also. Pliny attests again that there were two inside gates in Port of Isis – Zailac, “on one of which are some stone monuments with inscriptions in unknown alphabet.”2 The statement suggests that the inscriptions were in use in the cities. Those of them we know today have survived because the cave protection. But those that were in open places, like old ZayLac and other semi-urban centers, faded within these lost towns. The inventors of that culture are viewed today as a people that created, as demonstrated by their work, an “advanced, sophisticated, and affluent culture consistent with a more settled society”. They took time to adorn their cattle with ceremonial attire and ornaments fashioned from artistic metal or semi metal objects. Their craftsmen were specialized practitioners that produced a high quality of arts in their paintings and drawings. Despite the effects of age, human activities, weather decomposition, and other natural conditions, the quality of their work endured thousands of years and retained its clear designs and solid colors.3 As such, this people preserved an important phase of their history by inscriptions, and pictures which were styled by at least eight different colors. This itself is a sign of an existence of foundations for intellectual and technological developments during that early phase of their history. 3 The Ancient Kingdom of Punt and its Factor in Egyptian History By Said M-Shidad Hussein Copyright © 2014 WardheerNews, All rights reserved Did the Puntites borrow the technique of engraving the ideas? Generally, the culture of expressing ideas in pictures or inscriptions begun in Sumero-Akkadian Iraq and subsequently spread throughout the region. From Puntites in the south and Hittites in the north, and from Elamites in the east and Mycenaeans in the west, many nations in that region developed a kind of writing system. Other groups in the region which invented their inscriptions were the Egyptians, non-Akkadian Semitics, and the Cushitic Sudanese as the latest one. But what we can see, on one hand, is that the various inscriptions of these cultures were mostly developed separately. While we can’t rule out an idea exchange among these civilizations, one nation’s alphabet was not technically borrowed from another for most of the cases because the alphabets are not in a same form. On the other hand, technical borrowing had in fact occurred. The Hittites took the Sumero-Akkadian alphabet. The Semitic inscription (Aramaic, Phoenician, Arabic, and Abyssinian at a later time) took different forms but shared a technical root. Seemingly, that is not the case for Cushitics or Northeast Africans (Egyptians, Puntites, and Sudanese). As far as we can observe, the methods of their inscriptions are totally different. But still a common heritage in the ideas is highly probable. Since the development of Heliography and Puntiography took place during same periods, it is not impossible that a common heritage was actually the case for the progress. But still, although the Egyptian was efficiently used, we don’t know which one of them was the original source. This cultural achievement of early Somalis is corroborated by the level of lifestyle development of their successors, the people in the Somali cities and their country during the Greco-Roman era. On the bases of their trade enterprise, they were an urbanized and relatively advanced society which was not only exporting various goods, but also importing a lot of goods from various countries such as India, Arabia, Egypt, Persia, and Mediterranean countries. The type of imports reveals the level of the needs of the people and their life standard (see below, the next section). 4 The Ancient Kingdom of Punt and its Factor in Egyptian History By Said M-Shidad Hussein Copyright © 2014 WardheerNews, All rights reserved A Valuable Partner of Egypt Egyptians have considered Punt as a viable state whose rulers were partners of theirs. Besides cultural and commercial details, Hatshepsut’s naval mission pictures also carry political information. A Puntite King was shown receiving a diplomatic note with sizeable quantity of merchandise and presents from Egyptian rulers through the commander of the expedition. The note contents of course included remarks recommending the mission to the Puntite authorities. Accordingly, “The report declares that members of the mission were continuously feasted and entertained, and the head guest of honor, was boarded in the king’s residence during the whole period of the mission’s stay.” 4 The diplomatic dispatch received by the Puntite King from Hatsepshut might suggest that the system of communication of two sides was sometimes included a documentary approach within mutual understanding condition. This is also reflected by a symbolical affinity. Probably because of being an office or cultural requirement, the always Somali-worn dagger was shown as part of the Puntite King’s dress. As another sign of office traditions, the Puntite Monarch is also depicted with long beard in a shape like the Egyptian ones. Montet observes: ‘’The artificial beard worn by Pharaohs and the Egyptian Gods is an imitation of the natural one worn by the men of Punt. It may be wondered whether, at some point, the letter did not leave the country of god and settle in Egypt introducing some of their own customs and perhaps their gods.’’5 These resemblances in some political aspects are also evidenced by the similarities of some Somalo-Egyptian royal and governance terms such as: Perho = Per’o (King), Ati = Hati (Queen or Princess), Hab = Hap (System), Xeer = Xer (Law).